HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - About 20 students from Huntsville private and public schools will show off their knowledge this weekend at the Village of Promise's Randolph Challenge.

The academic competition, beginning at 3 p.m. Sunday at Randolph School's Thurber Arts Center, will feature students from Randolph, Butler High School, Westlawn Middle School and University Place Elementary.

Jennifer Nash, communications director for the Village of Promise, said the competition is an outgrowth of a Randolph School initiative called Community Learning, which gives students a chance to apply their education to help with their community's social, economic and civic needs. Under Mason West, Randolph's director of community learning, the school chose the Village of Promise to dedicate its time to.

The idea for the Randolph Challenge stems from collaboration between teachers at the private school and those at Butler, Westlawn and University Place, Cash said. The goal is to spotlight students for their academic achievements.

"Academics are not celebrated like athletics are," Cash said.

Fourth-graders from each school on Sunday will participate in a "Math Attack" and give their own State of the Union addresses. Middle school students from Randolph and Westlawn will compete in the "Stand and Deliver Debate."

High school students from Butler and Randolph will be part of an entrepreneurship competition, Cash said.

Judges in the competition range from city councilmen to business leaders. The event is being hosted by Liz Hurley and Kenny Anderson.

West, who on Thursday took the children through their last practice before the competition, said the rehearsals have been going well.

"It's building their confidence," West said. "Once they have that confidence, they're all right from there."

The educator said all of the children needed to build their confidence, but in different ways.

"For the kids from the Title I schools, it's believing they can achieve," West said. "The students from the private school learn to master certain things, and it's going out of their comfort zone that they sometimes fear to tread."

West said the biggest lesson the children learn in the competition is that the human spirit transcends socioeconomic background.

"Opening these kids to a world outside of their comfort zone, they can see people who come from a different world, but are a lot like them," West said.

The Thurber Arts Center is at Randolph's Garth campus, located at 4915 Garth Road SE.